@everyone Whitefire990 statement regarding the Xilinx 1525 modification and thermal management: difficult to over clock: 1. You need to use a DC1613A PMBus dongle with a custom cable adapter to plug into the VCU1525 PCB and reprogram the current limits and core voltage. 2. You need to disassemble the VCU1525 and modify the cooling system, which means you need to use ESD protection straps and use a heat gun to soften the thermal paste on the FPGA and you still risk breaking the BGA solder joints and ruining your card. That's why the VCU1525 is hard to overclock. The software allows you to immediately run it at any speed up to 900MHz but without the above mods it won't work.
@everyone Bittware is looking to develop a mining optimized VU9P board with water cooling and higher power capacity than the VCU1525, which converts to significantly higher overclocking speeds. The VCU1525 is very difficult to overclock (it can be done but it takes technical expertise and it runs really hot 100-105C). With the VCU1525 now being $5K and the Bittware board at $5895, this is something to strongly consider if you are looking to get into FPGA mining. Although I own 9 x VCU1525, my next rig will be made up of the water cooled Bittware cards. Just FYI.
It’s from discord.
If I understand correctly, the Board 1525 without modification will not be ready to work with software mining.
Any commentary?
#1) The VCU1525 is equivalent to what I've been using to mine on amazon for almost a year. You can use about 85% of the logic before power becomes a significant problem.
#2) These are FPGA, not GPUs. You don't want to overclock it.
#3) On FPGA, the cooler they are, the better they operate. You should really put them in a proper datacenter. I would not recommend putting them in your typical 'mining
warehouse barn' with the chickens and roosters.
-- I'm honestly not sure if whitefire is just trying to make money for bittware or what the deal is. He's really trying to push their overpriced cards.
-- We will be doing a gen 2 card based on the vcu1525 with an additional 8 pin PCI-E power input. HOWEVER, it will take months of design, evaluation, testing, etc before it's ready for sales. For right now, we can do the VCU1525 which we know will work for mining, we know what the maximum logic utilization for power, and we know what pricing we can give them to you at. (about 20% under avnet and 33% under bittware). What this all really comes down to is performance to cost. If you want to spend an extra $2,000 for the same chip just so you can have a watercooler on it (something you could do with the vcu1525).... have at it...
Edit:
-- And bittware is only going to give you a 90 day warranty anyway.. I'm sure that warranty would be void if you're running at a modified / increased voltage (overclocking). So, you really are paying +$2000 for a waterblock. Am I the only one out there who thinks that's crazy? Maybe it's just because I'm one of the few who know true chip pricing.
Guess you don't allow PMs from newbies 